We were in Burlington today - Fred visited Bill Rossi while I had an appointment with my eye specialist - no shot(s) today!!!  We were surprised at how little snow there is in Burlington.  The ground was bare in lots of places along the way, and in the city there were a few spots where snow had piled up from being plowed, but mostly it was bare streets.  

Weather here is spring-like - more like late March or early April than mid-January.  Regardless, I can't help feeling uneasy.  There may be a big, nasty surprise lurking just off the present weather charts.

Is everyone ready for the big inauguration tomorrow?  I hear promos that coverage will start at 9 a.m.  An elderly woman in the doctor's waiting room today said to me, "Think of all that money they could spend on something useful."  Well, she's right, but think of all the businesses getting a boost providing services to produce this ceremony.  Curious, I tried to find out how much money we were actually talking about.  According to information published by the N. Y. Times, it will likely be in the vicinity of $200 million.  Congress gets to pay about $1.25 million, for the ceremony itself, and the rest is covered by private donations.

I recall that during the campaign Mr. Trump declared he wouldn't be taking any pay while on the job.  Turns out, he's not the first to do that - George Washington, J. F. K., and a few others also declined the salary; however, the way our government is set up they pretty much have to take it.  If they are serious about not wanting to be paid they can donate the money to charity, which is what several presidents have done in the past.  This will be interesting.  

Curious again, I found this site listing the wealth (in today's dollars) of our presidents.  

Right now, Woody is requesting some attention, having been left alone for most of the day.  If he didn't have a pesky habit of knitting in my hair at night, he could probably sleep on our bed on special occasions like this, but since he has failed to understand boundaries every time we've tried, he's officially banned from the bedroom at night - door closed, no meowing or scratching allowed.  He has learned to respect the closed door thing, but every night he makes a game out of racing us to the door when it's bed time, and frequently makes it past us to hide under the bed.  It's easy to trick him into coming out, though.  All it usually takes is a belt trailing past the end of the bed or some unusual noise in another part of the house he can't resist investigating.

We learned last night that granddaughter, Tangeni, who has been wanting a pet - preferably a cat like Woody - most of her five years, is now going to realize her dream.  It can't be a cat because sister Jo-Ann is allergic to them, but Tangeni and her dad will be picking out two fish and setting up an aquarium.  The fish already have names - Bill told me, but I don't remember.  I'm sure we'll be formally introduced the next time we visit.  We had a fish tank  when the boys were young - one, "Big" out grew several aquariums and was part of the household long after the three boys had moved out on their own. I think we had him 8 or 10 years.  He flipped out of the large tank we had for him a few times (it had a top, but he was BIG) and we heard the commotion and each time we were able to return him to the water unharmed.  But one day made the leap when we were at work.  End of story. He was a legend.